02/28/12

For many years now, Google has been the most popular search engine for people around the world. Bing is one of the most used search engines after Google and is considered to be a rival especially with their partnership with Facebook. Though the popularity of Google is so much that the noun has become synonymous with the verb ‘search’, there is still hope left for Bing. Since the algorithm is different, the techniques used for search engine optimization also vary for Google and Bing.

Demographics

The first thing we consider while differentiating between Google and Bing is demographics. Bing is not popular everywhere in the world but its user base is mainly from the USA. Also, Bing users are usually Microsoft customers that use Internet Explorer as their browser with the default search engine as Bing.

Traffic Sources

Both search engines get traffic to their home page in differing ways. Google is a household name and gets a lot of direct traffic that comes from simply typing the website name into the browser address bar. Bing on the other hand, gets as much as 21% of it’s traffic from MSN as opposed to Google traffic which comes from a lot more sources and websites compared to Bing and it doesn’t have dependency on any particular website for its traffic.

The Algorithms

Bing search results are influenced by whether the page is linked to MSN pages or not. If not, it may not show as high on Bing’s SERPs, even if it is more relevant to the search phrase. Google on the other hand has an incredibly complex and advanced algorithm and Google users expect to find impartial information on the site. They like the intelligent Google search engine and are not looking for reference to other sites while using it.

Monetization and Site Credibility

However, if you are looking for paid ads Users using Bing and Yahoo are more likely to click on advertisements and hence if you are looking to implement a paid search campaign, Bing may be a good choice for you. Google tends to collate information from a wider variety of sites like forums and blogs better than Bing, is more intelligent and identifies the relevancy a lot better than Bing which brings back matches that are primarily based on word matching.

These are just a few general observations about the differences between optimisation for Google and Bing and since the search algorithms are constantly being updated you need to spend many hours a week just to keep up with the industry or employ the services of online marketing specialists who are constantly monitoring the trends and changing world of search marketing.

About the author: Alyssa Clarke is a blogger who also happens to be a tech buff. She is always on a look out for latest tech stuff and is currently hunting for some cool Macbook air accessories and an Android PDF reader.